This week I am listening to the 1964 rendition of the folk song “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. This song immediately transports me to many evenings spent with my father, listening to him strum away on his acoustic guitar and teaching me the chords and the 6/8 fingerpicking pattern to this amazing song.
My father is an incredible provider, protector, strong presence in our family, and equal partner to my mother. For the bulk of my childhood, baba was stationed as a mechanical engineer in the hydroelectricity plants of Kaligandaki, Nepal. I have many memories of visiting him in the Kaligandaki quarters, and memories of a very excited little me, waiting by our Lazimpat house galli, for when he would come home for the weekends/and Dashain, yelling “Surprise!” and would take me out on a special outing – where I got to snack on roasted chickpeas and a chilled glass bottle of coke. #babachhori #sugarhigh
When he was home, he would play music really loudly on all of his speakers, as he tinkered away on the balcony with all his tools, flashlight and soldering iron, assembling an audio system of speakers, mixers, amps, equalizers and turntables. You see, my baba is an audiophile, and he likes listening to all his records, in lossless quality on vinyl. Through him, I learned and listened to the entire Beatles catalogue of songs alongside many artists from his era, which included the Carpenters, John Denver, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Carlos Santana.
The quirkiest thing about baba was that one year he spent many months building an incredible audio system, but decided to trust and leave it all out in the open on our Lazimpat home’s veranda, on full display for every walking spectator🤦🏻♀️. Long behold, one fine summer day, we all came home to a raided balcony…and the burglars had stolen all of baba’s audio equipment. 😔
This left a young 6 year old me extremely angry and perplexed. I am taking a vow today, Mr. Burglar, that next lifetime, I am going to hunt you down, ninja kick your butt🥷🏻, and steal your audio system😠.
Here’s my rendition of “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals.
#thehouseoftherisingsun #theanimals #songsthatmademe
Listen to the original here:
